She has used previously untapped sources in the archives of the Morgan Bank and the Pierpont Morgan Library and has produced a full account of Morgan’s life and career. These and the many other figures from the art world greatly enliven the second half of the book: there are not many laughs in banking.Jean Strouse, Morgan: American financier (The Harvill Press, London, 1999), 797 pp, 80 b/w ills, £25 (hb) ISBN 186046355XSubscribe to The Art Newspaper’s digital newsletter for your daily digest of essential news, views and analysis from the international art world delivered directly to your inbox.Find out how The Art Newspaper’s content platforms can help you reach an informed, influential body of collectors, cultural and creative professionals.
Other institutions angled for his attention, and he was notably generous and trusting in his philanthropy when he believed in the competence of his proteges, and rarely interfered with their plans. In the exuberance of his buying he more resembled Catherine the Great, since, in his impatience, he often bought whole collections en bloc.His range was vast and his preference was for highly wrought decorative art. The New York Public Library. He became involved in the affairs of the Metropolitan Museum at its founding, rather in a spirit of noblesse oblige, since he had no need of the social cachet that such a connection afforded New York society.
These, like much else chosen by Morgan, are now in the Frick Collection.The story of the tangled triangle of Morgan, Berenson and Morgan’s young female librarian, Bella da Costa Greene, is fascinating, psychologically and socially. He married into the same milieu and his daughter once remarked that both her paternal and maternal antecedents doubly qualified her to join the Daughters of the American Revolution. Morgan paid an enormous sum for this famous portrait, five times more than he had given for the Rembrandt portrait of Nicolaes Ruts (now in the Frick Collection) only three years earlier, hardly a balanced assessment of their relative importance. Now recognized as one of the world's greatest treasuries of seminal artistic, literary, musical, and historical works, The Morgan Library & Museum began in the 1890s as the private collection of the legendary American financier Pierpont Morgan. He took his place by right in the highest echelons of American society, and in London and Paris as well: the patrician Henry Adams, whose contempt for mere riches was always trenchantly expressed, excepted Morgan from his category of men who could not be admitted into “a good club”, however rich they became.
As a young businessman, Pierpont Morgan showed an occasional interest in books and manuscripts and acquired a small group of historical and literary autographs. However, books were excepted from this imposition, and, to cut a long story short, that is the reason why the American have a Pierpont Morgan Library but no comparable art collection. His education was cosmopolitan, with attention being paid to fluency in languages (he spoke both French and German) and he was familiar with European art and culture from an early age. In spite of his Continental education and long residence in London, he began collecting in the typical fashion of the American rich of his era, buying contemporary works of a somewhat flashy character. He became involved in the affairs of the Metropolitan Museum at its founding, rather in a spirit of noblesse oblige, since he had no need of the social cachet that such a connection afforded New York society. His feelings about works of art are less easy to divine.
His marriage was a disappointment to him and he had mistresses for whom he provided very generously. Although the well-educated Morgan was neither a scholar nor a connoisseur in the strictest sense of the word, he acquired, with a keen and intuitive eye, on a vast scale both in quality and scope. Morgan’s banking career coincided with a period of huge expansion and prosperity for the US, and, although the banking partners had setbacks, the general trend was an irresistible rise.Even so, at his death Morgan turned out less of a Croesus than his way of life had suggested and John D. Rockefeller famously remarked, on learning from a newspaper of Morgan’s net worth at his death, “and to think he wasn’t even a rich man.”Morgan spent prodigiously, which may explain why his fortune appeared so pitifully small to Rockefeller. One pertinent example is the now disputed Gainsborough of the Duchess of Devonshire that was sold by the Morgan family and returned to Chatsworth in 1994. He had numerous houses, and his European travels were conducted en prince, punctuated by huge shopping sprees for art and books. As of Monday, August 3, The New York Public Library has expanded grab-and-go service to 30 branch locations as part of our gradual reopening. Nor did he repine when things went wrong. Financier, industrial organizer, and art collector. In fact, it was his architect, Charles McKim, who had the nervous breakdown, not Morgan. You can browse, search, or see highlights. The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, There are episodes in its history that are strongly reminiscent of the Rothschilds and their legendary capacity to sway the course of events on a wide political stage.